dear Nettime:
Alexander Bard states that, "a new class with a new ideology is the only possibility of genuine revolution. And such ideologies are derived
from the potentialties of new technologies.” What utter nonsense. It is this kind of reductionist rubbish that keeps the wheels of neoliberalism turning and it certainly ain’t gonna bring about any revolution. As Florian and others have mentioned neoliberalism is not easily reduced into a neat package; the Thatcher-Reagan strand is only one variation. It is worth doing a little homework before prescribing medicines best sold in carnivals. There are a number of good reads in this direction, for example “The New Way of the World: On Neoliberal Society” by Pierre Dardot and Christian Laval is a good starting point; Wendy Brown has also devoted considerable thought to this problem.
The Monbiot piece is certainly flawed but that such articles appear is good if only to remind people that there is an ideology that is the basis for this prolonged crises of capitalism, the state, etc. etc… The crisis is deep and perhaps understanding its historical depths will get us to place where we can recognise and shape new ideological formations...
"Modernity itself is premised on the imagined breaking of medieval fetters on everything from individual happiness to knowledge
to freedom to national wealth. For the most part, only modernity’s critics (who are also critics of liberalism)—Burke, Rousseau,
Nietzsche—have questioned or challenged its forward movement. That intellectuals and politicians are now gazing backward to glimpse
better times suggests an important destabilization of the presumption of progress and of the claims and hopes that issue from such a presumption.”
cheers
allan
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